KJH Cares
Through our KJH Cares program, we regularly commit time, talent and treasure to charitable organizations in the communities where we live, work and play
One of our partners, Christine Fulsang, and her family organized the 4th Annual Weston Downs food drive in their neighbourhood to support the Vaughan Food Bank. The need was great this year with so many families having to rely on food banks due to the hardships caused by inflation and rising food costs.
Christine and three high school students attached flyers to the red donation bags (sponsored by KJH Cares) and prepared them for distribution.
On the weekend of October 22nd, the Fulsang Family and a group of five high school students delivered the red donation bags to over 2,000 homes in Weston Downs. Mother Nature was very kind this year. Despite holding the Food Drive two weeks later than the past two years, we were spoiled with two weeks ends of amazing weather to distribute and collect the donation bags.
On Saturday October 29th, 49 volunteers, including 31 students, went door-to-door collecting the red donation bags. This year, we also had volunteers at home base to help remove flyers from the donation bags and prep them for next year. in addition, a Crime Prevention Officer from York Region Police and two representatives from Ultimate Security joined the food drive again this year and assisted at home base. Their recognition and support of our community initiative was greatly appreciated. It was also nice to have some extra help to unload and load donation bags.
The Vaughan Food Bank had a new truck this year to pick up the donations. The truck can hold eight pallets and has a hoist that allowed us to transfer the donations from the bags to the melon boxes at street level. Once the melon boxes were full, they were loaded on the truck. The large truck made three trips with the bins fully loaded – this allowed the Vaughan Food Bank to quickly unload the skids with a forklift. The small truck also made one trip – to avoid having to make another trip, we packed donation bags on top of the melon boxes. In addition, the Fulsang Family made a trip to the Vaughan Food Bank with a full load in their SUV with the donations they collected after the food drive wrapped up. In total, we collected 33 melon boxes of donations – which equates to approximately 25,000 lbs. We also collected over $4,000 in monetary donations.
The Vaughan Food Bank was impressed by the results and so grateful for to the Weston Downs community. The generosity of the Weston Downs community is overwhelming! Plans are already in the works for next year with ideas on how we can further improve the Food Drive.
